And a little later, he started out to go to a prayer-meeting! As he reached the corner, he stopped suddenly, saying to himself, "Catch me stalking in there alone. I'll just run around and see if Art will go."
"Why couldn't father have told me?" he exclaimed, ten minutes later, when Arthur Knapp had explained the state of affairs.
Ah! Why couldn't he? It is safe to say that if he had, Perry might have gone to the lecture instead of a worse place, and the first downward step would not have been taken that night. And, to go a little further back, why couldn't he have been satisfied with things as they were, letting the meeting have its chance. Then, perhaps, it might have been an upward step.
Lewie and Duncan met somewhere in the street, and decided to go to meeting together, but soon learned that there was none to go to; and presently they met Miss Wynn coming from the darkened church, herself quite in the dark.
"I wonder what it means," she said. "I thought there was to be service every evening!"
"So there was," Lewie replied. "I couldn't come last night, but I came tonight, to keep my promise. But it seems that science is better than religion—for some folks," he added quickly, as Mabel said, "O Lewie!" in a troubled tone.
"Don't be cross about it," said Duncan. "If they had only known that you and I were coming, they'd had a meeting sure. We'll let them know beforehand next time. They didn't expect us out, you know."
"But I don't understand," said Mabel.
"Why, you see," replied Lewie, "Professor A. is going to demonstrate the problem of the man in the moon's mode of existence, or some other puzzle, so the meeting is given up. I suppose people can sing and pray any evening, but they can't hear Professor A., except tonight. Still I think it is queer, and the Week of Prayer, too!
"I tell you, Miss Wynn," he continued, "things are a great puzzle to me. If prayer is so important that a week is set apart for it, and the whole world turned into a great prayer-meeting, I should think that Professor A. might go without an audience, rather than the meeting be given up. It appears that it is not considered of much consequence after all. Shall we go to the lecture, Miss Wynn?"